Location: Cicero, IL, but my heart is in Virginia where my family lives.

Posts: 417

My Mom. She raised 3 boys by herself, worked full time and cooked every night. As I got out on my own I often reflected on how she was always there for us and made sure we were ok no matter what. When I get to busy, I think of her. When I cook, I think of her When I am playing with my kids, I think of her. She is part of everything I do and is why I am who I am. My Mom is my greatest influence.

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Bryan Knox
What if the the Hokey Pokey IS what it is all about?

Mom would be #1. She claimed that neither her mother, nor my father's, could cook worth a poop (I'm putting this more politely than Mom would). They were old French-Canadian women who just wanted to put calories on the table for men who needed tons of food. One of Daddy's first gifts to Mom was a cookbook. Dad was in the Air Force, and Mom had many, and I do mean many, friends who were "war brides": Japanese, French, German, etc, women who taught her their cuisines. So I grew up eating all of these things. My friends' mothers were also war brides, mostly French. So we ate things like coq au vin, rabbit, suki-yaki, etc, on a rather regular basis.

While stationed in Italy, I hunted with Henry Nicholas, a DAC working for the Army Corps of Engineers. Henry was from Brittany, and made all the greater a hunting partner because he used to cook our harvests.